104 posts categorized "Contemporary Culture"

December 11, 2014

Artist Mark Farid would like to live for 28 days as another person through an Oculus-Rift-like, virtual reality (VR) device. His project Seeing-I will take place in 2015 at a London gallery, based on the success of its Kickstarter campaign (and additional commercial and public funding).

"It’s to see if who we are is an individual identity, or if there is just a cultural identity that kind of takes us on,” says Farid. “I’ve grown up in the city my whole life. So everything that I’ve seen—the square gardens that we have, the tree that’s planted in that specific place, the way the wind travels down the road ... all of that is artificially created,” he says. “Every experience that we’re having is synthetic."

I'm curious how he will record these changes in identity. People write in a journal or diary to record personal thoughts or wander through writing in an attempt to solve problems or gain insight as they form their identity in real life (IRL). Could Farid write in a journal during his project?

If Farid were to keep a journal, a virtual reality technology could be an obstacle. With a headset constantly being worn throughout the project that shows another's life, Farid would not be able to see a journal and pen or laptop from his own perspective. This would make it impossible to write.

The desire to become another presents limitations, as well. Removing the headset to write during the project could take him out of the headspace of “Other”—the person whose life he will be virtually experiencing—too much. Doing so could even negate the immersive, identity-blending effects of living virtually as another.

For one hour during each 24-hour period, Farid will talk with a psychologist monitoring his health and well-being. Could he write down his thoughts for a bit during that time? Perhaps a modification in the VR headset could allow this? If so, who would Farid be writing for, and who would he be writing as?

Writing during this project could become an indicator of state of mind throughout it. If his identity is challenged or blended with the “Other” during this time, I think it would show in his writing, even though Farid may not be aware of it at the time. In addition, I wonder about the cognitive changes in his writing process that could occur. After looking through a virtual reality headset for so long, how would it affect his handwriting? Does a shift in the handwriting style signify some sort of identity shift, away from Mark Farid and towards someone else? How does a person attempting to live through another's life express written language, especially since whatpeople write is so tied to their thoughts and how they communicate?

I think adding a writing piece could result in a rich record of what the artist experiences during this project. If Farid cannot write during Seeing-I, he could write about the experience soon afterwards, in sort of a stream of consciousness/"brain-dump" way, to record as much memory, observation, analysis, and emotion from the experience as he can to refer to later.

Looking foward to hearing more about Seeing-I's progress. It hints at the possibility that science fiction offers with present society's beginning attempts to find virtual reality's place in our lives. The outcome could fuel creative imaginations, multimedia art and technology projects, and identity/virtual worlds research, also.

Interested in being the "Other"? Applications are being accepted here.

If understanding a brief history of virtual reality art projects intrigues you, read the above mentioned article from The Verge. It contains relevant outbound links to VR/art experiments that I had never heard of and is highly informative.

After some thought, I have decided to email the Seeing-I project about my ideas from this post, and I will update if I hear anything back that merits an interesting share.

UPDATE (12/18/14): I emailed this post to the Seeing-I project and heard back from Nimrod Vardi, Curator/Director of Arebyte Gallery, which will be hosting it. To clarify some of my questions above, Mr. Vardi explained that at this stage, "Mark cannot be doing any writing as he will not see what or where he is writing." Still, he is completely subject to the Other's activities. If the Other writes, then Mark would write, and the project will have to figure out how to make that work. In addition, Seeing-I will now receive funding from commercial and public sources, plus funds from the Kickstarter campaign. I'll post updates as the project proceeds.

August 29, 2010

"How to be alone" by filmmaker Andrea Dorfman and poet/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis is beautiful and perceptive in word, image and tune.

After viewing the video many times, I realized that the benefits of being alone are visually implied in the film by Tanya's being in nature, outside or away from screens which constantly and digitally connect us to others.

One of my favorite lines is "Start simple: things you may have previously avoided based on your 'Avoid Being Alone Principles.'" What's yours?

August 02, 2010

I found "Stop motion with wolf and pig." (see above) in a round-about way, one which has brought up some interesting considerations about Web culture.

While visiting swissmiss, I saw The PEN Story, a stop-motion video with a very distinctive style. I tweeted about it, I was so impressed by it. Then I read the comments associated with the post, and two commenters said that The PEN Story was a copy of "Stop motion with wolf and pig." I went to YouTube to see if that could be true.

Countless animators use stop-motion techniques, and PEN clearly isn't a copy of Wolf. However, the visual narrative of PEN so completely mirrors Wolf that I'm surprised the follower didn't credit or reference the originator in some way.

Am I missing something? Is there a video created in this style with the same visual anchor points (i.e., envelope, table, room, water, path) even before Wolf? Are so many photographers/animators making videos in this style that its hard to find the precise starting point?

This raised many questions for me about inspiration, remixing and Web ethics in this closely connected and highly fluid digital environment. Anybody have details or thoughts which could help clarify this?

July 26, 2010

Mashups are, according to a Wikipedia entry which needs some editing and discussion around its content, almost a decade old. (Music sampling has existed for decades.) The genre continues to evolve, with stand-outs going viral and their creators/DJs gaining worldwide recognition.

"Carpenter's Wonderwall" is one such example: a song/video blend created by DJ Mark Vidler of Go Home Productions. It starts with Oasis's "Wonderwall" and is joined by The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," bridging hits from different musical eras. It's brilliant on so many levels — enjoy.

January 21, 2010

While I haven't blogged in awhile, I have been busy writing and reading (some online, most brick-and-mortar). One example: I'm closely following news about Twitter and mobile phones because I think they have incredibly potential for communication and creativity.

To keep track of this information for myself and to share with anyone else who is interested, I have started a Twitter articles page. It features links to noteworthy Twitter articles. From the page's intro:

Twitter, the free microblogging service started in 2006,
has been used to influence elections in the United States and Iran,
break news about natural disasters and political happenings, and gather
donations to assist Haitians after the devastating January 2010
earthquake.

While critics
deride Twitter, I continually find merit in it. It is powerful in a
ground-level way, giving private citizens, companies, organizations and
thought leaders (potentially influential) voice on any subject
(significant and trivial) they desire. I look forward to seeing how it
evolves.

So, will Twitter
disappear, as other social networks have? In my opinion, no. It
has substantial market share, and while anyone can create their own
140-character microblogging network, terms like "tweet", "tweeting",
"followers", "Twitterville", etc. will most likely be synonymous for describing microblogging — referencing the only substantial,
well-populated microblogging community existing today.

I
read anything I can find about Twitter. Below is my list of noteworthy
Twitter articles, including news on new developments, trends and uses
of Twitter. It has been sifted to remove much of the fluff: while it's
a noteworthy trend that many celebrities have found a comfortable,
digital way to constantly communicate with tweet-reading fans, I
won't report on it — they are easy enough to find on their own, and are
often only "ego-casting" or "life-casting" (brief missives on what they
ate for breakfast, what they're wearing, who they're hanging out with,
etc.).

I'll add to this as I find more articles. Questions and comments are always welcome.

Regarding life-casting, I found a gem: the Museum of Modern Celebrity Tweets, which shows celebrity life-casting in a humorous light. Above is an illustration of a recent tweet by musician Nick Jonas. Odessa Begay is its illustrator and, I suppose, head curator. Found via Holy Kaw! at Alltop

The MoOM offers a semi-curated virtual tour of a vast variety of collections (it is updated quarterly). It is organized yet also proves the Web is both wide and wild; such a diverse list reminds that the WWW expands endlessly and infinitely, unbounded by nothing but imagination's limits—and people's proclivities to put all this online.

I could spend hours at Shorpy, a vintage photo blog linked from Plan 59. Whew, indeed.

UPDATE (4/23/09): From the Coudal Partners' email newsletter sent out today -- "Our Museum of Online Museums is currently under
renovations for the Spring Exhibitions. Look for a slew
of new showings and oddball collections in the next day
or two."

March 31, 2009

Heads up, Creatives! The PSFK Conference in New York City, this Thursday starting at 9AM, offers an inspiring lineup of speakers in digital publishing, tech trends, green design, the arts and communications. A bit about its background:

Tailored for creative professionals, strategists and the media, we will host 12 lectures and panels on topics that include arts & culture, design, digital & mobile technology, marketing & advertising, sustainability, social mediaand publishing.Attendees come to our events to share ideas with likeminds, so beyond the talks we will curate interactive experiences in the venue that bring our core themes to life.PSFK Conference New York is the 8th conference hosted by PSFK following successful
installments in London, Los Angeles,New York, San Francisco, andSingapore.Past speakers and panelists include creative visionaries and innovators from companies like Apple, BBC, Microsoft, MTV, NASA,Panasonic, Starbucks, Wieden+Kennedy, andthe Guardian, and globally-recognized and inspiring creative minds including Shepard Fairey, Kate Moross and Jeff Staple.

Tickets are still available. If anyone reading this attends and blogs about it, drop a comment back by here so I can (a) read your blog post, and (b) link to it so others can read it. Thanks!

March 26, 2009

If you care about storytelling, literacy or education, I recommend reading "Fewer than 10 pct. of blind Americans read Braille" by Ben Nuckols of the Associated Press.The title's statistic of "Fewer than 10 percent" didn't mean much to me until I read of the profoundly negative effects on blind Americans of not being fluent in Braille:

...Today Braille is considered by many to be too difficult, too outdated, a last resort.

Instead,
teachers ask students to rely on audio texts, voice-recognition
software or other technology. And teachers who know Braille often must
shuttle between schools, resulting in haphazard instruction, the report
says.

"You can find good teachers
of the blind in America, but you can't find good programs," said Marc
Maurer, the group's president [the National Federation of the Blind]. "There is not a commitment to this
population that is at all significant almost anywhere."

Using
technology as a substitute for Braille leaves blind people illiterate,
the federation said, citing studies that show blind people who know
Braille are more likely to earn advanced degrees, find good jobs and
live independently.

"It's really sad that so
many kids are being shortchanged," said Debby Brackett of Stuart, Fla.,
who pressured schools to provide capable Braille teachers for her
12-year-old daughter, Winona.

One study found
that 44 percent of participants who grew up reading Braille were
unemployed, compared with 77 percent for those who relied on print.
Overall, blind adults face 70 percent unemployment...

The article cites technology like audio books as hampering the way blind
people learn to read and write. Couldn't someone, perhaps using
a new technology, improve Braille learning, instruction and
communication? (Does anyone reading this post know anything about this?
Please leave a comment if you do!)

On another note, if any group is deprived of outlets to tell their own stories, their experiences will often go unnoticed. Following this, when their stories disappear, the group itself becomes less noticed in larger society.

Writing and reading stories is so crucial to children's (and adult's) growth and development. Clearly the blind population is not being served. I wonder how many great storytellers, thinkers and inventors among this group are being kept from reaching their full potential because of low Braille literacy.

Inspired by the article, I looked up Louie Braille on Wikipedia. He developed his system of raised dotswhen he was 15 years old.

June 24, 2008

For those interested in reading an English excerpt from Hannu Luntiala's text-message novel Viimeiset Viestit (The Last Messages),Lola Rogers has translated a 35-page section of it from the Finnish. It is available for download here (PDF format). A complete English translation may be available soon — Lola is showing this excerpt to publishers.

If you missed my interview with Finnish author Luntiala, click on Part 1 and Part 2 to read it.

June 03, 2008

After watching a stand-up comedy DVD (one I'd never heard of or seen before, and that was brought over by family) this weekend, I realized this about comedy:

Great comedians have the amazing ability to tell the truth — the most awkward, painful, hilarious, honest truths — to laughs and nods (or to head-shaking in embarrassment because, after all, what they are saying is often true).

Some comedians tell truths in palatable ways. They confirm what we people know or suspect about political leaders, fashion trends, famous folks, and characteristics of general society. While they can offend, and they always offend someone eventually, comedians push ahead in their quest to share observations and anecdotes; these stories, often about their personal lives or right-on observations from daily life, are brutally honest yet told with a "wink-wink", so they are heard.

If you want to know the truth within current events, an awkward political scandal, a corporate mishandling, or celebrity snafu, look to the comedians. Some days I think that a comedy monologue should accompany the nightly TV news, so that subtle aspects behind what is really going on could be spoken (by the media) and acknowledged (by the media and the rest of us).

If a society has no comedians, I would bet that truth-telling in the media is near zero. Comedy, particularly satire, provides an outlet for healthy release of societal tensions around awkward issues. Comedy brings up what we cannot say ourselves, and lets us look at it straight on, couched as pure entertainment.

Hello and welcome!

My name is Kristin Gorski. I recently earned my doctorate (EdD) in instructional technology and media. My research focuses on technology and literacies, writing in digital spaces, and how media literacy may support academic literacy (among other incredibly interesting topics). On occasion, I’m also a freelance writer and editor. “Write now is good.” is my personal blog about writing, creativity and inspiration (with healthy doses of technology in relevant places). I started it in blogging's heyday (2006) and still post to it, time permitting. If you'd like to collaborate on a project, have writing/technology/creativity info to share, or want to say, "Hi," contact me at kgwritenow (at) yahoo dot com.
To read more about me, click on the "ABOUT" link below.